


It Is Certain

by orphan_account



Category: Captain Underpants Series - Dav Pilkey, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017)
Genre: A few spoilers for It's Hard but not many, Egg Casserole, F/M, Oh my god this was so much fun to do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-02-28 21:05:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13279872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He could remember that day in his office as could she, even years after, stuffed to the brim with humidity and dust. There had been a magic 8 ball on his desk- he wasn’t sure how it had gotten there. A prank, he assumed, or a confiscated item he had forgotten to put away. Maybe it was a misguided attempt at a joke from a coworker. He didn’t know, and he never would find out. Almost lazily he had shaken it, passing it between his hands as his thoughts drifted with the dust on the sunbeams.  The answer, read right before she had come through the door, was “It is Certain.”He didn’t know what that meant at the time.They laugh about it now.---The first time Benjamin and Edith met, coupled with some snapshots of what would eventually come to pass.





	It Is Certain

**Author's Note:**

> Oh this was so much fun. 
> 
> Credit goes to Burnttuakrisp, who came up with the prompt https://burntuakrisp.tumblr.com/post/162671352769/i-want-there-to-be-a-fanfic-of-krupp-and-edith
> 
> Credit also goes to Jackie-Sugar-Skull, who came up with the idea of teachers taking bets (It's a small mention, but I thought it was cute, so I snuck it in) http://jackie-sugarskull.tumblr.com/post/160815288916/cu-movie-headcanon
> 
> Credit also goes to Vizivior, who was origionally going to co-write this with me but had to pull out. I rewrote the whole thing to be of my own words, but they get credit for helping pencil an outline for how this should go. 
> 
> I came up with a few things that would have had to have happened before the start of the movie, then refrenced what I had penned down for It's Hard.
> 
> Cheers!

       The occupation of lunch attendant at Jerome-Horwitz Elementary School was not one that was especially coveted. In fact, the general distaste of the position was marked clearly by the noticeable lack of applicants. Still, Mr. Krupp would’ve expected at least a few more than just one.

       However, beggars can’t be choosers, and while in fevered panics he had entertained the notion of persuading one of the teachers to take up the helm, he talked himself down fairly quickly. Treason was not a way he wanted to start the year, and while he needed a lunch attendant, he was not about the die on the hill of, ‘It’s In Your Contract’.

       With all of that in mind, and with a vaguely threatening prayer that this candidate better work out, Benjamin and Edith stared across the desk at the one another on a Tuesday afternoon in the heavy, waning heat of August.

 

_They would meet again, years later, after a million and one sideways glances and mangled conversations. It would be in a corner booth of a tiny Italian place squished_ _between a dump and a highrise, a relic of the old city they both knew about and yet could never bring themselves to visit. It just wasn’t the kind of place you went_ _alone, but they wouldn’t be alone then. Across a weathered table cloth, the plastic seats creaking and the dusty fake vines swaying lightly overhead in the air_ _conditioning, they’d split good food and good laughs and wonder why they never managed to get here sooner._

_And they’d be happy._

 

       Edith had not been sure of what to expect when she had scheduled an interview. The voice on the phone had not hinted at much save for a sharp personality and a sharper tongue. Sitting there though, watching the principal page through the documentation twice over, she decided he was exactly as she predicted him to be; rude.

       The magic 8 ball on his desk, though, threw her for a bit of a loop. It did not seem to belong there, and yet, it was there, even as he seemed to be pointedly ignoring it which, truly, only made the whole situation all the stranger. There was not even a speck of dust on it, as though he had been playing with it moments before she entered the room.

       Try as she might however, Edith could not imagine it.

       She was jared from her thoughts when he cleared his throat, shuffling her papers and squinting in the slant of light, before he finally edged out, “So, it says here your name is Edith Lunchlady.”

       Edith squared her shoulders, ducking her head.

       “Clearly, you misread the application form,” he said, waving the papers as though it were more of a peace offering than an insult, “Can you give me your full name?”

       “...Doe.”

       “Of course it is.”

       And still, in the silence, she waited, and watched. She took note of the slowly slipping toupee on his head, the way his nails were bitten to the quick and further back still, the way he ground his teeth as her made his way back over the lines, the way the veneer of the desk, though cracked, still showed signs of being recently polished.

 

_There are cracks in just about everything; in the walls we raise, in the lies we tell, in the facades we construct over our true faces. They’re not hard to notice if you start_ _looking, and once you start looking, it’s not often that you can stop. Sticky note reminders take on new meaning when it’s noticed they’re there every day, just as much_ _as subtle phrasing and clandestine gentleness. They were just the smallest cracks, but they were there, and later, much later, every time they felt that prickling at their_ _shoulders and turned just in time to watch the other turn away, how strange it was for there to be another crack, and yet, not strange at all. They may have never said_ _anything directly, but there was something in noticing that you were noticed, something in seeing the good in that which others seemingly could not._

_They were worth being noticed. They were worth being seen._

 

       One look at her and her documentation and he was already planning on her resignation. He guessed that at best she would last about five months. Calculate in her two weeks and, if nothing else, it at least bought him some time. The kids were going to drive her to commit hara kiri.

       Truth be told though, some days, even he was tempted.

       Were he in any other position, she would have been sent out the door. He didn’t have the patience for this sort of thing. Again, though, he did not have time for this and, unlike his other faculty, he was reasonably confident she would not give his students some sort of horrendous sickness, like salmonella or radiation poisoning. Besides, the school website she had sent her application through was old and downright broken in places. Truly, it was an understandable mistake, though he would be damned if he said it.

       Even if she was apparently trying to pin him in his seat with that livid stare of hers.

       “Spelled like it sounds?”

       It was hard to return that look she was giving him. Ben hid his discomfort by taking a drink from a water bottle he had stashed in a desk drawer as she replied, “Yes.”

       And he paused.

       “May I- Would you like a drink?” he asked, pulling out another bottle.

       “No.”

       “Alright,” he dropped the bottle back into the drawer, kicking it shut with his foot.

       “...But thank you.”

       And again, he was caught in that livid stare.

 

_There were so many days where all they wanted was for the floor to open up and swallow them whole, where she had found one too many crying children and he had_ _engaged in one too many shouting matches over the telephone, where kindness was the only thing they could give and even then, sometimes, they didn’t have enough._ _Worse still, there were so many days where it seemed like every single person in that school was out to get them, and maybe, on occasion, that was an accurate_ _description. There were sleepless nights and seemingly endless hours where all they wanted to do was crumble under the weight they carried, but, regardless of the_ _whispers amongst the rest of the staff, regardless of bets placed that made them blush and worry, they found, when they carried it together, they felt so much less_ _alone._

_It was what kept them together, even in the worst of times, though there were so many worse times still ahead._

 

       “You don’t have any prior job history of working in any sort of academic setting, let alone food services.”

       “Um, no.”

       He shuffled in his seat, seeming to arrange his thoughts, “Experience in the field is usually a must, but as you clearly don’t have it... I’m going to assume you don’t have your clearances.”

       Drat, he had her there.

       “Are they difficult to get?”

       “Ah,” Mr. Krupp cleared his throat, “No. Unfortunately, we are obligated to pay for  you to get them if you don’t currently have them, as it’s mandated by the state.”

       Edith blinked, processing what he said, “So...so what’s your question?”

       “I’m just trying to figure out why you want this position considering you have absolutely no history in this field whatsoever.”

       “Because...I like...to cook?”

       “That’s not what I meant,” Mr. Krupp said, leaning forward as he did so and using the corner of her papers to tap the table, “The position requires more of an ability to organize, clean, and maintain control of both yourself and a very chaotic situation. Every. Single. Day. Within the purview of the law as it has been written by those overpaid twits on capitol hill. I remind you again, you will be feeding kindergartners to fifth graders, and I don’t know if you’ve ever met a kid in that age bracket, but I get the feeling they will be far more than you can handle.” He leaned back, and for the briefest moment, Edith thought she saw a smirk cross his face, “To be blunt, I really don’t give a damn if you can cook, Miss Doe.”

       The comment hit her like a blow to the chest, but she held her tongue, crossing her arms and letting her fingers dig into the soft muscle above her elbows, “So- so what do you have an issue with, then?”

       “It’s less about the clearances and more about my general concern for your ability to do the job. If you can explain-”

       “Sir, my experience in accounting, as listed in my resume, serves as testament to my capabilities to organize and monitor.” She was babbling, lips pulling back from her teeth as she felt the words break over her teeth, but she did not care. She was not going to take this lying down, “My history in retail, and cleaning, as listed in my resume, show my ability to maintain a cleanly environment. My time spent in customer service, and secretarial work, also listed in my resume, clearly show experience in dealing with individuals in high-stress environments. ‘To be blunt,’ sir, I feel like, above all else, these are the things you should be looking for for this position,” She leaned forward, “So even though I don’t actually think you have any real problem with me, I’ll ask again, what’s the issue?”

       She should not have done that, not at all, but even as embarrassment forced her back into her seat, it was hilarious to watch the principal’s face go a spotchy shade of pink, and she could not help but look on in bitter triumph.

 

_He would always be an unapologetic live wire, snarling and sparking, a dangerous shock to any system. He burned so much energy and spit so much lightning it was_ _a wonder he hadn’t set himself on fire years ago. That would not change, that would never change, but there was something tethering in the moments she would look_ _at him, that cool wide-eyed stare that seemed to grab him by the ribcage and shake him from his fury. Of course he would admonish himself later, say that such_ _things were stupid, but he couldn’t help the smoldering, the curling, that he felt in his lungs after she left the room, taking those eyes with her._

_After a time, she knew it, too._

_And she relished in it._

 

       He had told himself he would not make this difficult, he had set that precedence for himself at the very beginning.

       He also had no idea why he could not stick to it.

       To be fair, she was correct, but that did not mean he had to like or or even make her aware of the fact. A migraine hovered just on the edges of his brain, and like an injured knee signaling rain, the vein in his temple gave a jerking throb. He covered the hissing inhale with a bark of, “My issue is that this position is not an easy one, and if you’re applying thinking that it is, you need to get out of this office. The job, let alone the students, can be a real handful. Are you sure you're up for that?”

       Ben did not like the way his voice sounded; dry, and too rough. He took another drink.

       “Yes.”

       He caught the faintest hint of confidence in her voice, even as it trembled, and the vein in his temple throbbed again.

       “You understand you’ll be feeding kindergartners to fifth graders?”

       “Yes.”

       “You understand you’ll be in charge of the entire production of organizing, cooking in, and cleaning the kitchen?”

       “Yes.”

       “You are aware we have literally nobody else on staff who can help you.”

       “Oh...well I am now.”

       He coughed, trying to contain a laugh and taking a moment to look away before continuing, “Do you have any hesitations about your abilities to fulfill the duties of the job as listed out to you by me, now, and by the position summary online?”

       “No, I- I don’t think so, actually.”

       He told himself he would not make this difficult, he truly did, but as he saw her mouth twitch up again in that split-second half smile, he found once more he could not adhere to that precedence.

       “...In the interest of being candid with you, Miss Doe, I have to tell you that I think you’re being an idiot."

 

_In a distant summer, her mouth would be on his, his hands in her hair, the rain pounding against the windows of her apartment as they both seemed to slip from_ _the world. In a distant summer, they would have spent all of spring in a beautiful spazam of hesitation, unable to turn away when caught staring but still also unable t_ _o reach out and grab the moment. In a distant summer, they’d both take the risk and allow themselves to be the fool, to relish in living, even when there were so_ _many reasons to turn and run away. They were their own satellites, tethered by force and power unknown, and in that moment, keeping each other from spinning off_ _into the dark and cold abyss._

_And for a while, all was right in the world._

 

       “Excuse me?”

       It had been a long time since Edith found herself offended, but she found herself offended now. The principal, for his part, seemed rather nonplussed, looking at her with all the expression of a pug who had eaten a lemon and found the taste nothing exciting.

       “Miss Doe, I don’t know what kind of school you went to, but this is a public school. A public elementary school. In Ohio.”

       “I know that-”

       “We have roughly three hundred students within this building.  You are going to be dealing with some of the most bratty, entitled, stubborn, loud, downright nasty, and yet horrifically vulnerable people this town has, and you will find that not all of them are kept in the conditions they should be,” he leaned forward then, the veneer of his desk cracking just a bit more as fingers lacing together and placed his weight on his elbows, “But I want to settle this right now, by law of the state, you will be able to do literally nothing about it except pass it on to someone above you. Do you understand?”

       There was a subtle shift in his tone, and Edith caught it almost by surprise. For a moment, she found herself without reply, then “There’s always something that can be done.”

       “No, actually.”

       “You seem fairly confident in that statement.”

       “I’ve been doing this job for almost twenty years, Ms. Doe.”

       “So you’re expecting me to just keep my mouth shut and pass off control to someone else and-and act like it’s not my problem? Is that what you do?”

       She watched his hands tighten, the skin around the juncture of his fingers going white, “When I do not have authority over a situation, yes, I have to.”

       Edith bristled, sitting up in her chair and snapping without thought, “Don’t know how anybody could stand themselves after nearly twenty years of that.”

 

_She was tenacious as hell and twice as tireless, he’d learn this early on. There was not a brick wall or a scrap of bureaucratic red tape that could hold her down, not a_ _person or law anywhere within that god-forsaken state that could keep her from running headlong into where she should not, and people had tried. Nobody ever f_ _igured out what she had been doing until it was too late for them to stop her, so specific with her decisions and the strings she gently pulled, and though it was only_ _with the intentions of doing what she felt was needed, it still felt like at any moment, the other shoe would drop. Some days, she felt like a tiny spider, weaving a web in_ _the early predawn and hoping the morning dew did not give her away, and yet at some point, he must have figured it out. He must have figured it out because when_ _she was sure he knew, she could almost believe there was a flash of respect in the looks he’d shoot her before tactfully making himself scarce._

_He didn’t have the words or the courage to try to explain how he felt, so he settled on ‘beautiful’ in the back of his head and hoped she understood._

 

       “That method of recourse,” Ben said through gritted teeth, “is dictated by the state, not me, so if you’d like to quit being so high and mighty, I’d really appreciate it.”

       She was going to get the job. He really did not need to be so difficult, and yet, with her sitting there, so caught up in her own righteous indignation, all he wanted to do was tell her to get out. Giving Jordan a raise would have been so much easier. If it was not for the fact that it was because of Jordan they nearly flunked the state health inspection five years in a row, he would have done it and not even had to have bothered with this interview.

       However, she almost immediately appeared to wilt in her chair, shoulders hunching. The woman even relinquished him from that ungodly stare, choosing instead to eye the woodgrain as she quietly picked at the edge of the desk.

       “I get that this position is going to be strenuous,” she said, voice low, shaking him from his frustrations, “and I get that there’s a lot to this that I don’t know, but what I do know is that I’m willing to try and I’m willing to learn so-...so if there’s a legitimate reason you think I can’t do this, fine, but I’d at least like to know what that reason is.”

 

_There would come a time where everything would be too much, but she hoped he knew she cared. When she said he was her best friend, she meant it, but she only said_ _it because she was tired of watching him hurt himself again and again over the uncertanty that was the new axis of their world, burning not just the candle from both ends, but all the midnight oil he had in some vain attempt_ _to- she didn’t know, she didn’t know what he was trying to do. She didn’t know what was happening, or at least, she didn’t know why, but there had been the hope that_ _if she removed herself from the situation that maybe, maybe, it would ease out. It was getting to bee too much for her, no matter how she tried to work through it, and_ _he-he just needed space. He just needed time. It would work out, right? That’s what she hoped, even if she wasn’t sure she believed it._

_She was grateful he never asked her for a reason. Outside of fear, she didn’t have one._

 

       Ben stayed quiet, letting the woman across from him sink into her own wide-eyed silence, before he sighed.

       “You have the job,” he muttered, rolling his eyes as he did so, “This is a formality, so you can stop- stop whatever that thing you’re doing right now is.”

       “But-”

       “No buts, you have it.”

       “...But you just said I wasn’t fit for it.”

       Ben huffed, finally looking at her as he said, “I said I don’t know if you are, not that you aren’t. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone else who applied-”

       “Then why have you been grilling me this entire time!”

       The outburst was expected, but the look of anger on her face was not. Had he been anyone else, perhaps, that would have frightened him, but he was not anybody else. It was when she suddenly seemed to snap out of that anger, eyes blinking as she placed a hand over her mouth to catch her curse, that threw him.

       “Shit-Ack! Shit- Sorry!” she mumbled, “I- it’s- that was a serious question though.”

       “What?”

       “Sorry.”

       “No just- what the hell was that?”

       “Oh,” he watched her bite her lip, looking away as she muttered, “I punned.”

       “...You what now?”

       “I-shhhoot. I accidentally made a pun. You’re interviewing me for the position of lunch attendant and- and I just accused you of grilling me.” The woman gave that flimsy half-smile, “Sorry.”

       He did not quite know how to respond to that.

 

_Later, in the dead of winter, nearly frozen stiff and dripping with fresh snow, it would be impossible to pretend that this wasn’t happening, his mouth on hers, her_ _hands balling his jacket in two tight fists, standing just outside her apartment door. It could have been thrown off as a natural, near innate response to the way they_ _had caught each other staring too many times this evening to brush off, or the way they locked arms on the long walk home, blaming the ice and the lack of salt on the s_ _idewalks, but whatever it could have been construed as didn’t matter. None of the lies held up anymore. It would be impossible to pretend that things were fine, that_ _they could still walk away, that this wasn’t real. A single person can only deny the truth for so long when it is staring them in the face, let alone two, and no amount of_ _fantastical chaos in the world can really erase reality. When they finally broke to breathe and to awkwardly laugh at being caught by the neighbor down the hall, she_ _said only one word to him, letting it curl in the air between._

_"Stay.”_

_And he stayed._

 

       Edith watched as the principal’s face fell into an oddly crumpled expression. His brows came together as the side of his mouth puckered while his fingers unfolded to drum against the table. It was over. She was done for. The entire interview had been a total disaster but this, truly, took the cake.  

       “...Nevermind.”

       There it was.

       “Sorry, I’ll just- I’ll go.”

       “Wait what?”

       “I- you- you rescinded the job offer?”

       “No?” The question in his voice threw her off but, after clearing his throat, he continued, “I was-I had been concerned about you being eaten alive by the students.”

       “...Oh?”

       “But- well, after that…” he gestured loosely, “whatever that was, I’ve changed my mind.”

       She stared at him, lips pursed, until she finally broke, “Okay?”

       Mr. Krupp took a deep breath as he looked into the depths of his ceiling“Alright, jesus christ alright, let me spell this out,” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I don’t think you’re going to have a problem with them because they’re not going to see you as a threat. You’ve don’t look like the kind of someone to get in other people’s way and you’ve got the same dumb sense of humor they do. That already puts you leagues ahead of where you could otherwise be. So long as you keep your head down and your business to your damn self, you should make out just fine. Capisce?”

       “I-” the jagged edges of his cobbled logic did not fit into any sort of method of analysis she had on hand, and after a moment of trying, she simply gave up and accepted that she’d never truly get it, “Yeah, sure.”

       “Congratulations then,” he said, throwing a hand out for her to shake, “You’ve got the job. Let’s formalize this and get it over with."

 

_He could remember that day in his office as could she, even years after, stuffed to the brim with humidity and dust. There had been a magic 8 ball on his desk- he wasn’t sure how it had_ _gotten there. A prank, he assumed, or a confiscated item he had forgotten to put away. Maybe it was a misguided attempt at a joke from a coworker. He didn’t know, and he never would_ _find out. Almost lazily, he had shaken it, passing it between his hands as his thoughts drifted with the dust on the sunbeams. The answer, read right before she had come through the door,_ _was 'It is Certain.'_

_He didn’t know what that meant at the time._

_They laugh about it now._

**Author's Note:**

> There's also a spoiler for It's Hard if you can catch it. 
> 
> ;)


End file.
